


I'll Be Right Here For You

by Long_Time_QT



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Caretaking, Cecil Is a Good Boyfriend, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Knock Knock No One's Home, M/M, Re-Education
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-20 20:53:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21063023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Long_Time_QT/pseuds/Long_Time_QT
Summary: Cecil takes care of Carlos after his very first re-education.





	I'll Be Right Here For You

_Keep on whispering in my ear. Tell me all the things that I have to fear. Oh my. That sure is a lot of things. Welcome to Night Vale._

_-0-_

“I don’t think I can do this.”

“You’ll be fine. I know re-education can be… intimidating the first time, but you’re in good hands. They’ll take good care of you, and I’ll be right here for you when you get out.”

“Right now I’m more worried about getting in. Scientifically speaking, it should be easy and worry-free to get in. There’s a car door that leads into the open world. This is no more terrifying than the predictable-not-predictability of everyday life, but then the open world leads to the door of the building, which in turn will lead into a closed world of rooms and hallways. An unknown beyond. While scientists thrive on exploring and experimenting with the unknown, we do better as the observers rather than the observed.”

“Carlos, honey, you’re stalling.”

"Yeah… I know.”

“… I love you.”

“I love you too. I’ll see you soon.”

_-0-_

That was a few days ago.

Cecil finished his broadcast and went through the motions of shutting down the things that needed to be shut down, and starting up the things that demanded it. No one stopped him in the hall to chat or otherwise interact with him. They knew he had somewhere to be, after all.

He finally arrived home, the drive having been slightly longer than he would have liked, and announced his presence with a hopeful voice. He was only answered by silence. Cecil sighed his disappointment and locked up before going to check on Carlos.

As expected, Carlos was exactly where Cecil had left him, sleeping in a blanket cocoon in their bedroom. Cecil took a moment to admire the man’s long eyelashes and the angle of his jaw line as he brushed back a lock of hair so beautifully dark.

There was a small pile of iridescent insect wings on the nightstand, which was the Faceless Old Woman’s way of letting Cecil know she’d been keeping an eye on Carlos for him. Or that she changed the Wi-Fi password, but given the fact that she had slammed the bathroom door for fifteen minutes when he’d initially asked her for help, Cecil assumed it was the first explanation.

“How are you doing, bunny?” Cecil asked, not receiving or expecting an answer. He sighed and gently peeled back the blankets until Carlos (as well as his pajama bottoms and illegal water cycle t-shirt) were exposed to the open air.

“Come on, now,” Cecil encouraged as he coaxed Carlos up so that his legs were dangling over the edge of the bed with Cecil’s hands on his shoulders to keep him upright. “Up and protons-neutrons-electrons.”

Carlos opened his eyes almost mechanically, but gave no further indication at he was really awake. Or that he had even been asleep. Cecil smiled and adjusted his own stance so that he was looking into Carlos’ distant eyes. If he pretended hard enough, it was like Carlos was really looking at him.

“Hello, sleepy-head.”

He tentatively let go of Carlos’ shoulders, and when Carlos didn’t fall over, Cecil took his hands and pulled him to his feet. He continued to lead Carlos, guiding him carefully down the stairs and into the living room.

“There you go,” Cecil said as he settled Carlos on the couch, making sure he was positioned comfortably. “I’ll be right back with something to eat. Do you want me to put something on for you?”

Carlos gave no response. He didn’t even blink.

Cecil took a deep breath and put on an audio lecture/poetry slam by the newly reincarnated/reanimated Rosalind Franklin, then set about making something he could feed Carlos with minimal risk of accidentally choking him. Assuming Carlos would actually eat.

As Cecil worked, he let his thoughts wander. As is natural when life and routine was interrupted, they wandered onto worries.

Everyone went through re-education at some point in their lives (or like in Cecil’s case, at some point during the year). It was a natural consequence of questioning the system or getting a parking ticket. Really, with how blatant Carlos had been with his questions and experiments and refusal to stop using pens, it was a wonder it didn’t happen to him sooner. He’d shed his ‘interloper’ status long ago.

Because re-education was so common and because he’d gone through it so often, Cecil was very familiar with the progression of post-session recovery. What Carlos was going through was completely normal and natural after… whatever procedure it was you went through during re-education. For most people, this state could last anywhere between a few hours to a few days.

It’s just… he never expected Carlos to be a ‘few days’ kind of person, and even the ‘few days’ kind of people at least showed some signs that they were coming back to themselves. That Carlos wasn’t showing signs of anything was worrying.

Cecil shook his head and concentrated on the task at hand. When he was finished, he brought the bowl of polenta over to where Carlos sat staring at the wall, not having moved. He set the bowl on the coffee table and stroked the moonlight grey at Carlos’ temple.

“You’ll be back tomorrow,” he reassured.

Who he was reassuring was up for debate.

-_0_-

Another few days passed, a whole week since the re-education session, and Carlos still had not regained his sense of self. This was… unprecedented. This was confounding. This was so, so wrong that Cecil was beyond freaking out. He briefly considered storming City Hall and demanding someone answer for whatever heinous and vile oversight lead to this deplorable outcome, but he feared doing so may cause more harm than good.

And Carlos… Carlos deserved less harm.

There was a knock at the door. Cecil finished rinsing off the last plate from diner that night and dried his hands before heading to the door and opening it.

“Hello?” he said to the Sheriff’s Secret Police officer who had knocked. “Can I help you?”

“We’re here for the scientist,” the officer said.

There was a pause where they stared at Cecil and Cecil stared at them. The officer shuffled their feet.

“Sorry, we should be more specific. We’re here for Carlos. The Scientist. We forgot to capitalize the ‘s’ the first time.”

Another pause.

“He needs to report back to City Hall for a follow up re-education session. He was supposed to be there earlier this afternoon.”

“Oh,” Cecil said, glancing back over his shoulder to where Carlos lay on the couch staring at the wall. Or staring in the wall’s direction. “I… sorry. He’s not really in a position to make it there himself. Station Management wouldn’t let me leave early to drop him off and we only just—“

“That’s what we’re here for,” the officer said. “As this is a special case, we’ll take him there ourselves.”

“How kind,” Cecil said blandly, “but he still hasn’t fully recovered from his last session. Is it safe for him to have a follow up session now?”

“No need to thank us,” the officer said, clearly set on ignoring whatever concerns Cecil had. “Due to the late hour, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning to pick him up.”

Cecil still didn’t move to let them in. “Will they correct whatever this is? Will this follow up bring him back to himself?”

“You’re too kind, we’re just doing our job.”

Cecil sighed, and despite his misgivings, he let the officer in. As the officer lead Carlos out the door, Cecil hoped that this would fix whatever had been done. He hoped that this would be his last lonely night for a while. He hoped to have Carlos back soon. He hoped all of this as he settled into a cold bed in a room too silent and too alien in its familiarity.

Sleep took too long to claim him, but once it had, morning came too quick. Still, he couldn’t be angry at the lack of sleep. In his dreams Carlos had returned to him and soon those dreams would be a reality.

He arrived to City Hall twenty minutes before Carlos was set to be released. He was also five minutes late. Time was a weird, fluid thing that was a force unto itself.

He stood outside the doors to the Re-Education Department, as walking in without an invitation was not allowed, and waited. And waited. And waited. He checked his watch, still the only accurate timepiece in Night Vale, and began pacing. What was taking so long?

He kicked a stone and watched it skitter off the walkway and onto the asphalt in the parking lot. When that failed to make time go by faster, Cecil took to seeing how long he could balance on each foot (not very long as it turns out), and then seeing if he could beat his high score on Fruit Ninja. You know, that game where you play as a fruit salad and take vengeance on sword-happy ninjas.

Almost an hour past the time Carlos was supposed to be released, the doors opened and Cecil watched his scientist stumble out of the darkness and into the sunlight.

"Whoa,” Cecil caught him before he hit the ground. “I’ve got y—“

Carlos jerked in his arms and the strangled noise he made almost made Cecil drop him. Almost. He steadied Carlos and only let go when he was confident he wouldn’t fall over. As soon as Cecil stopped touching him, Carlos calmed back into his vacant eyed stupor.

“Carlos?” Cecil asked, trying to meet his scientist’s gaze. “Are you with me? Let’s go to the car. Can you come this way, my love?”

When he received no response, Cecil sighed and took Carlos’ hand to guide him, only for Carlos to jerk away again.

“Okay!” Cecil said as he let go and held his own hands up. “Sorry, no touching.”

This presented a bit of a problem. Carlos couldn’t be verbally coaxed into walking to the car, but his aversion to touch was among the strongest its ever been. Cecil looked to the car, then back to Carlos and nodded.

“Okay, Carlos? I’m going to need you to come with me. I’ll lead you the ten, twelve steps to the car, then we’ll get in, and then we’ll be on our way home. Are you ready?”

Cecil tentatively grabbed the sleeve of Carlos’ lab coat, careful not to make skin-to skin contact, and (when Carlos didn’t react) pulled him along toward the car. The rest of the plan went off without a hitch and soon he and Carlos were on their way home.

It was a quiet drive except for Cecil’s trembling breaths and sniffling. He knew recovery wouldn’t be instantaneous. Of course it wouldn’t. As he had been obsessively thinking about earlier, it usually took more than a few hours to recover from re-education. It was stupid of him to be so disappointed that Carlos hadn’t looked at him or smiled or said his name in that wonderfully oaky voice.

He should count his blessings. Carlos was still with him (physically) even if he wasn’t _with_ him (intangibly), even if it was infuriating that he’d already had experience the reverse of this when Carlos was trapped-not-trapped in the Dessert Otherworld. Seriously, how was this fair? How was it fair that he was forced to experience a Carlos here but not and a Carlos not but here?

Cecil took a deep breath and loosened his death-grip on the steering wheel. At least this follow up re-education left Carlos at least a little more aware than he had been this first time around. This was progress.

The thought did little to make Cecil feel better when he glanced over to the passenger seat. Carlos’ chin was bouncing against his chest with each bump in the road.

They pulled into the driveway and Cecil wiped away the stray tears that lingered on his cheek took off his seatbelt. Once he’d folded it up and tossed it into the backseat, he hurried into the house and tracked down Carlos’ stash of comfort blankets. After a quick debate to see which one he should use, he grabbed the green quilt (green was a very scientific colour) and brought it out to the car.

“Okay, bunny,” he said as he took off the seatbelt, and then wrapped the blanket around Carlos’ shoulders. “I’m going to take you inside, set you up all comfy-cozy on the couch, and then put on the Walking With series. I think we’re up to Walking With Alien Progenitors?”

Carlos didn’t answer, but he did allow himself to be wrapped in the quilt and lead into the house. Cecil counted it as a win.

-_0_-

Cecil awoke to a sudden jostling of the mattress. With a sharp intake of breath, he blinked bleary eyes in the darkness until he could see a shape rising from the bed and moving toward the door.

"Carlos?” Cecil said, suddenly wide awake as Carlos opened the bedroom door and walked into the hallway.

He couldn’t believe it. Carlos was up and about! He was better!

Cecil sprang out of bed and into the hallway in time to see Carlos’ shadow disappear on the stairs.

“Carlos?” Cecil called out and followed his love down the stairs, the steps creaking underfoot. As he descended, an uneasy feeling in his gut ascended. This uneasiness reached its zenith when Carlos, still clad in only his atomic-pattern pants and night lab coat, walked out the front door.

“Where are you going?” Cecil asked and drew even with Carlos only to notice that his eyes were still closed off and empty. Like the front of an old car upon sudden and accelerated contact with something solid, something crunched in Cecil’s chest. He hadn’t realized he’d stopped walking until a set of headlights turned a corner and fast approached the path Carlos was currently taking.

“CARLOS!” Cecil dashed forward and wrapped his arms around Carlos’ waist, pulling him away from the road as the car whipped by blaring its horn.

Overbalanced, the two fell over. Cecil shouted when his elbow made painful contact with the sidewalk and he reflexively gripped Carlos tighter. This turned out to be a not good thing as Carlos screamed and thrashed until Cecil let go and retracted his arms.

Cecil gasped for breath and stared at the spot in the road that the car could have… the spot where Carlos almost…

“Oh my gods,” Cecil whimpered as he touched a hand to his injured elbow and looked over to Carlos. “Are you okay?”

He seemed okay, except for his unseeing eyes and the slight tremor to his hands. Cecil gulped and nodded.

“Okay, it’s- it’s fine. We’re fine. We face our own death and destruction everyday, and though the manner and severity of this truth is in constant flux, the fact that we breathe now is a sign that we survived. We survived and continue on to face either another vision of our end or the very things that make this life precious enough to keep breathing. We continue on. And we are fine.”

Who he was reassuring was no longer up for debate.

Cecil took a breath and pushed himself to his feet.

“Carlos, I’m going to help you up now. It will involve me touching you while you’re in sensory overload, and I’m sorry for that, but I promise that once you’re up I will guide you back inside with as little physical contact as possible.”

Cecil followed through with his predictive narration with the expected amount of difficulty until Carlos was on his feet. When they made it back to their room successfully, Cecil had settled Carlos back into bed and made sure to lock their door.

There was no way they were going to have a repeat of _that_.

Satisfied that the door would remain closed until morning, Cecil turned back and crawled into bed beside Carlos, now fast asleep. He grabbed one of the decorative pillows from the floor and hugged it tight to his chest as he watched Carlos breathe in and out. That’s when the tears came full force.

The next morning he called Abby to watch Carlos during the afternoon and early evening while he was at work, and the next night he made sure all the doors in their house were locked.

-_0_-

“Listeners… I’m sorry if I haven’t seemed quite myself the past few broadcasts. As you know, I have been… otherwise preoccupied. Carlos—“ Cecil cleared his throat “–sorry. Carlos has still not recovered from his re-education two weeks ago, or the follow up last week. Never mind that the average recovery rate is usually a day or two and that Carlos has previously shown himself to be strong of mind, what with resisting the Lazy Day and other such accomplishments that we ourselves as life-long citizens could not resist regardless of our Soul Strength.

“Or maybe I have inadvertently answered my own non-question. Do you ever get so caught up in the here and now, you forget certain details? Sure, we all have gaps in our memories from mass hypnosis, telepathic interference, and the government intervention, but that’s not what I mean. I mean the details that you know you know, and can recall easily if someone were to ask about them, but until those details assert themselves with a determined vigor you just… forget they’re there?

“It’s easy to forget that Carlos wasn’t always a permanent fixture in our little town. Maybe sweet, dear Carlos, with his other-townly birthplace acting upon him like a talisman of protection is immune to so much of what makes Night Vale a dangerous place to live for us, but at the cost of… well, at a cost.”

Cecil sighed, so caught up in the action it took him a moment to realize that he was still on the air.

“Up next, the sound of iced tea being thrown at musical restaurant goers and the resulting explosions. Until next time. Good Night, Night Vale. Good Night.”

-_0_-

Cecil walked in the front door and kicked off his shoes, not really caring to see where they went.

“Abby, I’m back,” he called out and threw his purse on the couch and made his way to the kitchen. “How was he today?”

He was only partway there when the silence demanded he slow to a stop. It pressed itself against her eardrums and urged him deeper into the house.

“Abby?”

When his sister’s voice failed to answer him he couldn’t help but become overwhelmed by a wave of anxiety. She had to be here, so why wasn’t she…

Cecil didn’t have to unlock the door.

_Cecil didn’t have to unlock the door._

Panic constricting his chest, Cecil reached a trembling hand into his skort pocket and pull out his phone, finding his sister’s contact information easily. The wait for her to answer was anything but. Finally, _finally_, she picked up.

“Yo,” she answered far too cheerfully.

“Where are you?” Cecil demanded, hating the tremor of his voice.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m home now, the door is unlocked, and—“

“I _knew_ I forgot something.”

“Abby, this is serious. Where is Carlos? Is he okay? Did you have to take him to the hospital? Has he been seen by a doctor yet? What’s the prognosis? Will he—“

“Cecil, you have got to chill. Have you checked around the house yet?”

“Well, no. I just got home now.”

“Do yourself a favour and check around the house. You might surprise yourself.”

“But—“

“Cecil,” Abby said in a way that he knew meant she was smiling. “Go check around the house.”

She disconnected and Cecil put his phone back into his pocket. He looked around the open floor plan, empty of everything except the physical. Nothing immediately struck him, so he made his way to the stairs.

He paused on the middle step when he heard a door above him open. Hope swelling painfully in his chest, Cecil ran up the remaining steps and froze in the hallway.

There was Carlos. He stood in the doorway of the bathroom, steam billowing out behind him and a dark blue towel wrapped around his waist. Carlos’ dark curls clung together as water like liquid diamonds dripped onto brown skin below. Most notably, however, were his eyes. His warm, deep, beautiful, _focused_ eyes. He was looking right at Cecil, and he smiled.

“Hi, Cecil.”

Cecil’s breath caught in his throat, trapping the nervous energy in his chest until it started to escape through water from his eyes.

“Carlos,” he breathed and moved forward until he was standing so incredibly close to the personification of every good thing in his life. “Carlos.”

“Hey,” Carlos cooed as he pulled Cecil into a hug. “It’s okay. It’s fine, we’re fine.”

Cecil broke along with their shared gaze. Wrapping his arms around Carlos, Cecil pulled him close and cried. Not delicately, either. The longer he held his love in his arms, the stronger his sobs hit and harder it became to breathe. It was agonizing, and embarrassing, and wonderful. So, so wonderful.

“Shh, Ceece, it’s okay.”

Cecil nodded and buried his face into the crook of Carlos’ neck. He pulled away at the sound Carlos made and the way his body flinched.

“Are you okay?” Cecil asked, pulling back so that further so that his hands rested on Carlos’ hips and searching those brown eyes.

“Sorry,” Carlos looked sheepish. “Not really… touchy today.”

“Oh,” Cecil retracted his hands immediately and covered his own mouth. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Carlos smiled gently. “I initiated the contact. Besides, you look, well, you look like you needed it.”

For the first time in a long time, Cecil was helpless to do more than just stare at Carlos. Speech had abandoned him.

“How about you go pour a glass of wine and start up a podcast. I’ll get started on dinner. After I get dressed of course. Both kitchen and lab safety require clothing before you can begin anything that involves mixing or heating or cooling.”

Cecil glanced down at Carlos’ chest with appreciation before nodding and heading back downstairs. He was already halfway through a glass of red when Carlos came down the stairs, dressed in his most comfortable jeans, a flannel button up, and his weekend lab coat. Oh, how tantalizingly beautiful to see him in actual clothes again! Carlos shot him a glowing smile as he walked into the kitchen.

Cecil watched as Carlos worked and every fear and worry he’d held for the past two weeks wash away. His heart hummed happily along with Carlos and for this first time in what felt like an eternity (time was weird, right?) their house felt like a home again.

The feeling lasted all through dinner, and clearing away dishes, and after dinner conversation. Cecil filled Carlos in on what he missed, kind-of-sort-of-definitely leaving out any details that were too painful or boring, and Carlos shared his thoughts on the things he’d missed.

When it was far later than they had intended to stay up, they trudged up the stairs and got ready for bed in a companionable silence. Cecil got into bed first, Carlos following moments after.

Cecil had all but succumbed to unconsciousness when he felt Carlos pull him close and kiss the back of his neck.

“Thank you for taking care of me.”

Cecil fell asleep with a smile.


End file.
